


Take My Breath Away

by CaptainSlow



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) Actor RPF
Genre: Lots of it, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Frustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:38:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSlow/pseuds/CaptainSlow
Summary: "Congratulations, mate," Joe mutters to himself. "Way to go, man, way to go. You're so in love, you bloody idiot."





	1. Joe

_So please don't go_   
_Don't leave me here all by myself_   
_I get ever so lonely from time to time_   
_I will find you_   
_Anywhere you go._

_I'll get no sleep till I find you to_   
_Tell you when I've found you -_   
_I love you._

_Take my breath,_   
_Take my breath away. *©_

*

Joe doesn't feel particularly fascinated by Ben's personification of Rogerina – or at least he keeps telling himself so, stubbornly – until he's had to spend a couple of hours watching him cat-walking around in that mini-skirt of his. It's true, Ben hardly makes as pretty a girl as Roger Taylor did, but there's still something about him dressed in a woman's clothes, and Joe is beginning to find this something increasingly appealing. He doesn't know if he should laugh or cry because of it. First, he managed to get interested in a guy – at least that's what he thinks has been happening almost ever since the very first day of filming – and now it turns out he fancies this guy dressed as a woman even more. One would think it would have been more rational to fall in love with a female in the first place, but in the real world, apparently, there's no such thing as rationality when it comes to love.

As to Ben, the more Joe looks at him, the more he starts to find that make up suits him, too. The eyeliner brings out the greenish blue of his eyes marvellously. Ben's lips, normally already bright as they are, are accentuated by lip gloss, and it looks nothing short of delicious on him.

Joe mentally congratulates himself, not without a good share of sarcasm, on defining another man's mouth as delicious. Well, that's a first.  _Or is it?_  his subconsciousness wonders sceptically. He tells it to shut the hell up.

Then, of course, there's that short skirt Ben is sporting, which exposes the not quite feminine bend of his legs. His thighs, though, look surprisingly tempting in those black nylon tights. The hem of his skirt ends teasingly just below his buttocks, and every time Ben walks, it moves and flutters, occasionally revealing a glimpse of a white garter on one of his legs.

This is what undoes Joe. If he wasn’t already attracted to Ben, this little detail does him in for good. He's not sure Roger did have that type of band around his leg in Queen's original  _I Want to Break Free_  video, and he wonders whose idea it was to put it on Ben's thigh. But whoever came up with it, they managed to place a delicious icing on the cake of Ben's sexual appeal because Joe is simply hypnotised by the white glimpses of that garter he manages to catch sight of from time to time.

As the shooting proceeds and he and Ben end up on the same sofa, it seems to go from bad to worse. Or rather, in Joe's case, from somewhat confusingly amusing to alarmingly arousing.

"Hey granny!" Ben giggles as he crashes into the seat next to him.

As he does so, the hem of his skirt slides even further up the length of his taunting thighs. He actually looks much better as a woman like this, sitting as opposed to standing when his masculine build is obvious despite the entire Miss Rogerina attire. Joe cannot help ogling those thighs. They are captivating.

"You're asking for a proper schooling, young lady," he mutters, not quite jokingly.

"Oh, am I?" Ben teases, wiggling his eyebrows and imperceptibly pulling the hem of his skirt just a tad higher over one of his legs. "Gonna bend me over your knee and spank me with a newspaper instead of a cane, you old spinster?"

For good measure, he slaps at the said newspaper, lightly enough but it still manages to knock it out of Joe's hands. It lands on the floor next to the sofa.

"Oh, this is it," Joe hisses sounding scandalised, and it's not exactly a fake emotion. He  _is_  sort of exasperated with Ben, not because of the newspaper, though, but because of the way he makes him feel, because of all those confusing emotions he evokes which Joe has no idea how to deal with. "You've asked for it, pretty."

Before Ben can understand what exactly he's intending to pull off, Joe leans towards him, wraps one of his arms around Ben's waist, puts the other one on the nape of his neck and pulls him down, abruptly, practically hauling Ben into his lap. The latter doesn't resist at all, apparently, way too surprised for that.

"You naughty, naughty girl!" Joe yells, holding Ben securely so that his ass sticks up in the air. At the same time, he gives it a hearty slap.

Ben jerks in his lap, letting out a shrill yelp – whether of pain or surprise is not clear. His hand ends up on the side of Joe's neck, fingers clawing at the collar of Joe's coat.

"Repent!" Joe yells, spanking that deliciously toned, excitingly round behind. "Repent, you little libertine! Repent I'm telling you!"

"Oh, fuck you, Joe, seriously!" Ben laughs deliriously, almost choking on his words.

His hand has found its way beneath the collar of Joe's coat and is now squeezing on his shoulder, very close to his neck, and Joe can feel Ben's skin on his own and,  _oh sweet Jesus please help him, this is going too far._

Somewhere in what seems like an entirely different world, Joe hears other people braying with laughter, he hears Allen's 'Y _eehaaaw, go granny!!!',_ he hears how Gwil guffaws and yells at them to keep on doing it, that he's going to film it all, but all Joe is aware of is Ben, so fucking close; Ben, choking with laughter against his upper arm – and oh, what wouldn't Joe give away to feel Ben's mouth on his skin, damn this granny coat; there's Ben's weight in his lap, considerable but excitingly so; Ben's firm round butt beneath his hand; there's his skirt that's ridden all the way up to expose his briefs, visible through the fabric of his tights; there's Ben's hand gripping his shoulder, and, suddenly, Joe cannot breathe; suddenly, he's terrified by the realisation of what exactly is happening right now. There are only the two of them in this moment, as if enclosed into a strange bubble shielding them from the outside world, and everything that's taking place inside of it is intimate. Worse, it's  _sexual_.

The only thing that's flashing on and off in Joe's mind like a broken neon sign is that one single thing he desires like nothing else is let his hand push Ben's skirt even higher and just grope him, right there, first his ass, and then slip his fingers in between those thighs and...

And just like this, in one single blink of an eye, Joe knows that he's fucked, totally and irreversibly. There's no running away from it any longer, no matter what lies he decides to tell himself later. The entire prank cannot last for more than perhaps a dozen seconds at best, but it's frightening how much can change in such a short period of time.

Inside their little world, Ben finally manages to turn in his arms, still snickering and with tears of laughter threatening to spill onto his cheeks. Joe looks down at him, looks into those tantalising, glistening eyes, and understands that he's wrong. He's not fucked, oh no. He's  _smitten_ , just like that, in that one instant. He'd do anything to make this go on, he'd do anything for a chance to keep holding Ben where he is, in his arms.

Joe looks down at Ben and Ben looks up at him, and something shifts imperceptibly on some subtle level only the two of them are aware of. Joe knows it because his heart seems to stutter in his chest for the briefest of moments and then go on.

Ben's head lies on the armrest of the sofa, his shoulders are in Joe's lap, his feet are propped into the other armrest, skirt pulled up high, lipstick smeared, and those shining bottomless eyes staring up at him, and Joe feels an oncoming fit of asphyxia. One of his arms is wrapped around Ben's middle, the other is hooked under Ben's neck, and fuck, even this is suddenly not enough anymore. He's glad he's wearing that stupid huge formless granny coat because it effectively conceals his growing hard on.

Well,  _touché_.

Somewhere at the back of his mind Joe is aware of Gwil coming up to the sofa, apparently snapping pictures, laughing and saying something, but Joe can barely hear him underneath the rush of blood in his ears. He feels like he's drowning, without any hope for salvation whatsoever, drowning in Ben's unblinking eyes. The latter doesn't seem to have any intention to move. He feels comfortable enough right there in Joe's lap. Joe might be wrong, of course, he might be just way too turned on, he might be imagining things he wants to happen, but it looks –  _feels_  – to him that Ben is doing his best to delay his getting up, and when he finally makes an attempt, it is only half-assed.

Excited to the extent of light craze, not able to perceive the world around him more or less adequately and not wishing to part with Ben, loath to put an end to this intoxicating closeness, Joe removes his arm from Ben's waist and hooks it underneath his knees, ending up practically holding him bridal style. It feels both ridiculous and exhilarating at the same time, and god only knows how such polar emotions could possibly coexist together, but they do somehow. The firmness of Ben's thigh beneath Joe's hand is titillating, its warmth is mind-blowing, the proximity of his hand to Ben's behind is utterly stupefying. Half-mesmerised, Joe tightens his hold on Ben, giving his thigh a trial squeeze as he does so – a proper groping, some would say – and lifts his legs even higher up in the air. Ben doesn't seem to mind and allows Joe to manhandle him whichever way he pleases.

Joe shifts his eyes from Ben's knees clad in black nylon and from the stark contrast his fingers make against the fabric and relocates them to Ben's face instead. Ben's gaze meets his and this elusive  _something_  occurring between them seems to grow even stronger.

Joe is robbed of his speaking, thinking and breathing abilities by the sight; by those bright eyes framed by false eyelashes which look up at him as if Ben was half-hypnotised, too; by the rosy flush on Ben's cheeks which accentuates his cheekbones marvellously; by his parted pink lips and just a glimpse of white teeth behind them. He looks both innocent and debauched, and either of those is somewhat absurd when used in relation to Ben. He's way too sexy to be innocent, but normally too amiable to be debauched, at least as far as Joe can judge from what he's seen of Ben since the moment they got acquainted with each other.

Not quite realising what exactly he's doing, completely enchanted by Ben, Joe flexes his other arm, the one that's beneath Ben's neck, and thus effectively brings him up closer to himself. Simultaneously, he leans in towards Ben, until the hem of his hat brushes the fake fringe of Ben's wig. Ben doesn't flinch, he doesn't even blink, both to Joe's sheer exultation and utter horror. He realises that if they weren't on set, that if there weren't cameras positioned all around them, if there weren't so many people in the vicinity, he'd just go on, lean in closer and end up kissing Ben smack on the mouth, and by the looks of the latter wouldn't do a goddamn thing to prevent it from happening.

Or maybe he would and this is only Joe's wishful thinking.

But they're not alone here, so his lips don't end up on Ben's. Instead, Joe turns it all into a joke in the last possible moment. He doesn't like it much, but there's no other way around it, and joking is the only thing he can resort to in order to save this most certainly already way too ambiguous situation.

"You're such a little tease, aren't you, darling?" he coos shaking Ben gently, which provokes a bark of laughter from Gwil, who's now perched on the back of the sofa.

Ben laughs, too, screwing up his eyes, and the magical contact between them is finally broken. Probably, it's for the better.

"Back off, granny, you're not my type!" Ben giggles, but when Joe does move back and Ben looks at him again, his eyes seem to say otherwise. It would be way too unreasonable to trust his feelings – since his feelings are in complete mayhem – but if, after all, he is not wrong, Ben's eyes look half-pleading, half-devouring.

"I'll spank you again for it," Joe promises in a whisper, helplessly drowning in those bottomless eyes.

To that, Ben only smirks.

Loath to part with his warmth and his absolutely delicious body, wishing he could postpone it, Joe gives him another gentle shake. After that, there's really nothing else he can do, so he finally helps Ben sit up. As he does so, his hands don't just leave his friend's body, they slide over his back and sides in a long, tender stroke. Beneath his palms, Joe feels Ben shiver barely noticeably, and then he finally moves away completely out of his reach. He doesn't look at Joe and even though there's still a smile on his lips, it appears to be more flustered that anything else. His cheeks look positively glowing red now, and Joe's would be, too, weren't it for the generous layers of foundation on his face.

 

The rest of the working day is hard to live through as Joe's focus is elsewhere. Or rather, it's on one particular thing, and that thing is the feel of Ben's firm round butt against his hand and the weight of Ben's body in his lap and those parted pink lips with smeared lip gloss.

After this incident, everything he thought he felt confused about has become pretty obvious. Whereas before he could turn a blind eye to whatever it was that drew him to Ben almost from day one, justifying it by friendship and chemistry and the common cause, today seems to have dotted all the  _i's_  and crossed all the  _t's_. It's terrifying to admit, but there's nowhere to run from his feelings anymore, not when those feelings almost hit him in the face just a couple of hours ago. Joe knows what he longs for now, and that's to be able to experience the sensation of Ben's body against his own, warm and heavy and pliant, Ben's gaze on himself, so inexplicably captivated, Ben's lips on his, parted for him.

He  _wants_  Ben, and now even his own body has confirmed it.

For some reason, they barely exchange a few words until the very end of the working day, and Joe has no idea whatsoever if it's because Ben also felt this thing just as profoundly, and if he did, whether this silence of his means anything. He's scared it does, he's scared he crossed the line, but even more so he's scared that he's not wrong in his assumptions that his desire of a purely sexual kind is mutual. The idea is thrilling, and this is probably the most terrifying part of it.

Joe keeps a close eye on Ben until they leave the set, and the most amazing and unnerving thing is that, from time to time, their eyes meet and there's a sensation of a spark running through the electrified air, and for that single instance Joe feels nothing short of electrocuted. He can't say it's a pleasant feeling. It's scary, it's unsettling, it seems to be unravelling him to his very core, but he can't help it, and there's absolutely no running away from it. Apart from the emotional turmoil, there's another thing Joe cannot help and cannot ignore, and that thing is sexual arousal. His mind keeps drifting off to Ben, to how he looked, so intimately close, to how his body felt in his arms, and Joe finds himself wishing desperately he could return into that moment and relive it again and again, and then he wishes he could let it unfurl, go on from simple goofing around to something more substantial, more intimate. Following his train of thought, his eyes keep drifting off to Ben again and again as he studies him, now in an utterly different manner, devouring him from the top of his head to his toes.

Joe is determined not to let his thoughts get the better of him, no matter how strong his sudden desire is. He knows how physical attraction works, now it's here and now it's gone, so perhaps when he wakes up next morning, he'll be feeling more like himself again. He understands that he might be deluding himself – most probably is, considering the intensity of his desire – but he's got nothing else to do, right? He can't quite let his dreams go all wild, he's afraid they'll overwhelm and crush him easily enough, leaving him breathless and lifeless and hopeless afterwards if he allows them to evolve and progress all by themselves. 

As it turns out, forgetting about Ben seems more easily said than done. While still on set, Joe keeps teasing Ben about how he doesn't look feminine at all and how Roger Taylor made a much better Rogerina and about how he is almost disappointed with how much he's not into Ben's drag look, but that's all feigned and mostly for Ben and everyone around. There's no sense in lying to himself, at least not at this point, not after he got turned on by feeling Ben's weight in his lap. So, if Joe is honest with himself, he very much  _is_  into that look, and damn him to kingdom come, he'd very much love to share another moment like that with Ben.

What sets Joe even more on edge is how Ben reacts to one of his obnoxious jokes when the shooting is done and all of them are about to leave the set and head for their respective homes. They are walking to the parking lot outside when Joe catches up with Ben. The latter finally looks like himself, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a sportcoat, with the only reminder of his metamorphose being the not quite washed off faint traces of mascara around his eyes. There are Gwil, Rami, Lucy and Allen behind them, all laughing about something Joe has absolutely no clue about – he hasn't been able to concentrate properly enough on anything but Ben.

"Darling pretty, would you like a ride home tonight?" he asks in a teasing manner and wraps his arm around Ben's shoulders. So much for not letting his mind derange, he thinks. "I've heard pretty little schoolgirls like you are advised against walking the streets of London alone at this time of day."

"Pretty little schoolgirls like me used to play rugby after lessons," Ben smiles at him sweetly and then, all of a sudden, Joe loses the feeling of the firm ground beneath his feet and, instinctively, he cringes inwardly waiting for the unpleasant and most certainly painful meeting with the hard tarmac. His mind is working in overdrive yelling inside his head that he must have taken one step too far and pissed Ben off at last. 

As it turns out, though, his rendezvous with the ground doesn't happen because his unexpected fall is stopped by Ben's arms that wrap around his midsection catching him just a few inches from the floor. Ben ends up towering astride his half-prostrate body, grinning down at him complacently.

"See, pretty little schoolgirls like me can take care of themselves, unlike you, granny," he smiles and gives Joe a wink. "So perhaps it should be me offering you a ride, huh?"

Joe laughs, a bit nervously at that, and then Ben gives him a hand and helps him back on his feet, one arm still wrapped around Joe's waist. Their eyes meet again, for a briefest of moments, and with the very short distance left between them it feels way too intense. For the second time in the past several hours Joe feels utterly paralysed by their depth and colour. Ben is the one to drop his eyes first and let go of Joe completely, and then, before any of them can say or do anything else, stupid or otherwise, the rest of the gang catch up with them.

"Just look at those two," Allen drawls, "seems like somebody couldn't get enough of butt slapping during the filming!"

"You're just envious, Al, of the butt slapping as well as of our special relationship," Joe grins and, acting on impulse, gives Ben's glorious jeans-clad behind a playful smack. The latter lets out a giggly yelp but he doesn't seem to be even slightly scandalised by it.

"Aw, man, did you have to rub it in like that?" Allen asks, sounding on the verge of tears. "Nobody loves me!"

"Leave those two lovebirds alone, Al," Rami says and it's absolutely astounding how much he sounds like Freddie. Even in a state he's in Joe is able to appreciate the man's incredible talent. "You have the rest of us, ready to love you, darling."

They all laugh at this, but Joe cannot say he's entirely there again. The warm imprint of Ben's palm against the small of his back and the tingling sensation in his own palm after slapping him do not let him go and, unconsciously, he keeps flexing his hand again and again.

It doesn't get any easier when he finally gets back to his temporary home, away from Ben and the entire Rhapsody thing. Joe makes a determined effort to distract – he cooks himself a late supper and watches some sports news and talks on the phone to his mother, but at the end of the day his mind still gravitates to Ben, and Ben's firm behind, and Ben's legs in those transparent tights, and that garter on his meaty thigh and his smeared lip gloss and his flushed cheeks and his bottomless eyes. In a desperate attempt to smother this utterly irrational longing, he goes to the bathroom, blasts the shower full gear and switches it on to lukewarm. He stands there shivering under the streams of decidedly not pleasantly cool water, willing himself to stop thinking about Ben, to stop  _wanting_  Ben. It does seem to help, but the respite is only temporary. 

It works for as long as he's shivering in the shower, but once Joe's out of it and warm enough wrapped into a blanket in bed, his obnoxious  _idée fixe_  returns. It seems there's no running away from Ben whatsoever, no place where Joe can hide from his utterly unanticipated irresistible longing for him. So, finally, when it seems that if he keeps resisting it, he'll explode from not being able to contain all those compromising emotions within himself, Joe finally surrenders to it, helplessly so.

Very slowly, he lets his hand run ever so lightly over the area of his crotch, merely tickling himself with his fingertips through the fabric of his boxers rather than actually touching himself. It feels pleasant enough, though, and there's that old excitement starting to kindle in the pit of his stomach. In defeat, Joe let's his eyelids slip shut and envisage Ben in front of his mind's eye; Ben, with those blushing cheeks of his, and with that cheeky smile directed at him; Ben, with his skirt pulled up revealing his butt; Ben, with those bright sensual lips of his; and, absurdly, it feels both thrilling and pacifying at the same time. The former is because just mere imagining Ben turns Joe on mercilessly in a matter of seconds, the latter is thanks to the final sense of liberation it provides.

Unbeknownst to himself, Joe lets out a sigh of unmistakable relief, spreads his legs and grips himself more substantially, now not merely teasing himself but rubbing the palm of his hand against the growing erection inside his pants.

From then on, it escalates fast, both physically and in terms of his reconciliation with the fact that there's no ambiguity whatsoever left about his feelings to Ben. With his eyes screwed tightly, and his stone hard, hot dick in his hand, and the image of Ben in front of his mind's eye, Joe has nothing else to do but simply accept it. As he lets his fingers encircle his dick, stroking slowly at first, playing with the foreskin, he knows perfectly well that he's in love with Ben, infatuated with him, smitten in the most literate sense of the word. He wants him in the most basic manner; he wants to have Ben, all of him; he wants to feel the solid presence, the body heat, the scent of his skin and the silken touch of his hair; he wants Ben's lips on his and Ben's tongue in his mouth and Ben's hands on himself.

This leads to another fantasy, and Joe consciously allows himself to imagine that it's Ben's hand on his dick, Ben's fingers running up and down his shaft, squeezing it, Ben's thumb brushing over the head, smearing the viscous drops of precum. Joe can vividly see that hand, the veins standing out beneath the tanned skin, squeezing him just right and jerking him off with precision.

Joe gasps as the pleasant pressure builds in the region of his groin, gasps because, oh, it's just so incredibly easy to envision Ben doing it to him. His cheeks burn and he's hot all over, so Joe pushes the blanket away from himself. The air in the room feels cool against his sweat covered skin and Joe presses his forearm to his mouth, muffling a moan.

"Yeah, baby," he mutters against his arm, and he sounds almost whining, desperate, pleading as if Ben really was here doing this to him, doing  _him_.

"Oh Jesus, oh, yeah, Benny," Joe murmurs incoherently, saying  _Benny_  instead of  _baby_ , and with that, his body seems to take a quantum leap and progress to the state of urgently needy, a land of total no return.

What leaves his mouth this time is not a gasp, it's a fully formed plaintive groan, and Joe thrusts his hips into his hand, motions jerky and irregular as he's dying for more friction. He feels his heart hammering in his chest, thumping against his ribcage at a maddening rate, he feels sticky sweat on his chest and stomach and the inner sides of his knees, he feels the muscles in his abdomen tensing and his balls turning into little stones, but the only thing he sees in front of his eyes is Ben. He can almost feel those pink glittering lips on his own, and it's unbearable.

"I  _love_  you," he gasps, breathless, surprising himself with how far it has suddenly gone, and how fast. "I love you, Benny." 

His voice is raw and shaky and desperate, and then it is finally over and he comes, the orgasm seeming to paralyse him from head to toe, with the only action happening being down there below his waist as his semen spurts in pearly white splashes that land onto his stomach and thighs.

It takes Joe's breath away completely, so much so that for a few moments, as he lies sprawled and wheezing and spent, with his muscles cramped and his dick pulsating in one rhythm with his heartbeats, he believes he's going to suffocate. But, strangely, it's not terrifying, it's a pleasant asphyxia induced by his profound feeling to Ben combined with the sensational orgasm he's just had.

Joe stays like that for quite a while, trying to catch his breath and riding on the orgasmic blissful high, feeling indescribably sated and at the same time longing for more, almost lovelorn, wishing desperately he could be with Ben right now, wishing he could just nuzzle his face into Ben's neck or chest or pretty much any other body part and just lay like this, wrapped in warmth and comfort and love. Joe lets out a sigh and rubs his face with his palms, leaving the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. There's a lump in his throat which decidedly does not make his respiration any easier.

It's a controversial feeling. On the one hand, in the physical sense, he is satisfied, more or less anyway, without that nagging, relentless excitement in the pit of his stomach, and that at least feels good. On the other hand, though, it's been a long time since he last felt this simultaneously in love and lovesick, and there's absolutely no question anymore as to the nature of his feeling to Ben. Besides, the most telling symptom is here too – Joe already craves more, like a wretched die-hard junkie.

"Congratulations, mate," he mutters to himself. "Way to go, man, way to go. You're so in love, you bloody idiot."

Then he sighs and opens his eyes to behold the empty bedroom he's in. He doesn't want to be here, he wants to be wherever Ben is. His hands are itching to get his mobile phone and either call or text him, but he's got no idea whatsoever what he could possibly tell Ben, and suddenly, it makes Joe sad, so profoundly at that that he is somewhat taken aback. On the other hand, the tell-tale emotional rollercoaster is another confirmation of his feeling, so he'd better get used to it. If he's right about defining what he feels – and he's certain he is – this rollercoaster will go on until Joe either stops being interested in Ben or comes up with an idea of how to get him. But that's the territory he doesn't fancy entering, not yet anyway, it's already way too complicated as it is. At least that's what he tells himself as he lays awake in his bed, feeling acutely lonely and wishing desperately that he weren't alone. 

He's almost asleep when a quiet jingle of his cell phone brings him back to consciousness. Joe reaches out towards the bedside table and fumbles for it with fingers which are too uncooperative. The screen light seems way too bright and Joe has to squint to see it properly. When his vision gets more or less accustomed to the brightness, his breath gets caught in his throat. His first thought is that he must be dreaming it all, that it's some sex-induced wet dream of his provoked by the events of the previous day and his personal revelations. 

The screen of his phone shows a notification from no one other but Ben. 

Before opening the message, Joe rubs his eyes just in case he's not seeing it right, but the it remains where it was. If it's a dream, Joe thinks, he'll be telling me he's on his way to mine, with condoms and a bottle of lubricant, or something in those lines. 

When he swipes his thumb over the screen at last, to read the message, it has nothing to do with either condoms or lube, thank heaven for small mercies. It is very short and simple, saying  _'I thought you'd enjoy this, gran'_ , and has a clip of Joe slapping the hell out of Ben's tempting bum attached.

"You bastard," Joe huffs at his phone after having watched the video several times. "You teasing, heartless, handsome bastard, what are you doing to me?"

Then he types his own,  _'Have mercy on my poor soul, Benny,'_ as a reply, hits send and plops back on the bed. Miraculously, the sadness is gone and he can't help a smile which must look utterly idiotic, but that's what being in love is for you – utter, ineffable idiocy – so he'd probably better get used to it as well. 

*


	2. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't need all the scones in London," Joe says and gives Ben a look, with that ironic smirk that's hard to read plastered to his lips. "Only the most delicious."

*

It's been a long two-day drive back to London from Scotland, and the past few hours have been particularly sleepy. Gwil is currently behind the wheel, navigating through the English countryside, and Ben and Joe are occupying the back seat. The two Englishmen have been taking turns to drive despite Joe's protests that he could handle the left-hand traffic just fine, so he's been banished to the passenger's seat all along. 

"You'll have to move to England, mate, and live here for a while before we let you behind the wheel of anything which has an engine," Gwil jokes in response to yet another objection from Joe.

"Besides," Ben pipes in, "if you come to live here, all the scones in London will be yours. And that's just me trying to persuade you not to leave us for your beloved New York."

He says _'us'_ , meaning Gwil and himself, but what he truly wants to convey is _'me'_. He has no idea whatsoever whether Joe gets the meaning – with him it's always hard to tell where reality stops and joking begins.

"I don't need _all_ the scones in London," Joe says and gives Ben a look, with that ironic smirk that's hard to read plastered to his lips. "Only the most delicious."

Ben reacts to it with a chuckle and a shake of his head, but before he does that, his eyes meet Joe's for a moment which seems to stretch for longer than it perhaps should, and when he turns away to look at the scenery rushing past, still smiling mildly, there's the already familiar fluttering sensation in his chest. It's been going on for a while so Ben has had more than plenty of time to stop being utterly confused by it. He is still somewhat bewildered and a long way from being ready to admit to himself what exactly is going on here, but the sensation is pleasant, so he doesn't really mind it.

It's truly amazing how all of them clicked right from day one, becoming close enough to keep this friendship going long after the filming itself was over, close enough to meet on a regular basis because neither of them likes going more than a couple of months at most without the rest of the gang. The jokes about bromances never cease, too, and there's certainly at least some truth in them, but it's not something particularly strange – it's only friendship, after all. Yet with Joe, it is – and always has been – subtly different, and for quite a while Ben's been wondering despite himself whether a bromance thing can actually transform into a _romance_ thing. All of them, including Gwil, Rami and Allen, propel this joke forward enthusiastically enough and doubtlessly enjoy it, but somehow Ben feels there are really only two people in it, Joe and himself. And he's not really certain if it is a joke at all. And this is where confusion comes from, confusion which Ben stubbornly refuses to deal with. Still, he has to admit that the emotions it evokes in him are exciting enough, and while he looks at the picturesque landscapes through the window, he cannot help wishing that the _delicious_ part of Joe's remark had nothing at all to do with scones.

It's getting dark outside, slowly but surely, but there is still enough light to be able to see inside the car, and from time to time Ben throws an occasional glance in Joe's direction. It's partly because he's worried about him as Joe's been down in the dumps for quite a while now. The trip to England has managed to cheer him up substantially, though, which is a relief. And then there's also another thing and it's getting harder and harder to ignore as time goes by. Ben's been telling himself it's only that chemistry they all have, that bromance thing everybody is on about, that Joe has managed to become a very close friend of his, and that's why he's feeling so much at home in his company. That goes well enough for an explanation, but deep inside there's also knowing that chemistry is not all there is to it. There's another reason, and it's much more serious than Ben wants to admit.

Subtly, he throws another glance at his friend and this one is longer than he initially intended. It lingers on Joe's face, wandering over his features at a leisurely pace, and if Ben could see himself now, he'd be surprised to learn that he looks at Joe with barely concealed longing. Gwil does see it in the rear-view mirror, though, but he's long stopped being surprised about those two. 

Joe is an astoundingly handsome man, what with his broad million-dollar smile and that profile if his, regular and somehow very gentle despite his sharp, pointy nose. He looks like a rockstar dressed in his blue jeans, leather jacket and a black t-shirt, with his plain sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Right now, though, despite his attire, there's not much of that rock'n'roll badassness about him; right now, he looks on the verge of slipping back into the pond of despair Ben and Gwil have been trying to pull him out of. He did seem pretty much all right and cheerful enough during the day, but Ben guesses that family losses do not loosen their grip on people that easily. He keeps watching Joe for some time, as the latter occasionally lets out a soft sigh or lowers his eyes to his interlaced fingers resting in his lap. For some reason, this melancholic state intensifies Joe's attractiveness, and Ben wonders distractedly why on earth suffering makes some people look even more beautiful.

His heart goes out to Joe, too, because, handsome as it makes him, Ben doesn't like to see him this miserable. He wants the familiar Joe, laughing and fooling around, full of sassiness and cheek. Somehow, this despondent version of him makes Ben miserable, as if something in the picture of his own universe has gone awry, and if he gives it some deeper thought, it's frightening just how much if his universe has become dependent on Joe. But Ben ignores that thought, persistently. 

As twilight falls and slowly transforms into darkness and Joe's mood does not lighten, it seems some decisions are becoming easier to make than in the broad light of day, so Ben chooses to give thinking a miss and simply _do_ something. He reaches out and gently taps Joe on his shoulder, and when the latter turns to look at him, at the same time not quite managing to suppress a tiny sniff, Ben tentatively beckons him to move closer.

For a very brief moment, he's scared that Joe wouldn't, either not understanding what Ben wants him to do or misinterpreting it somehow. Besides it, there's another fear, that of being rejected. It's connected with that other feeling Ben has and which he refuses to acknowledge, at least in the light of day. But it turns out that his concerns are groundless because Joe scuttles closer without a single word spoken, with the air of helplessness about him so strong that it's almost palpable, and settles right next to Ben, resting his head on Ben's shoulder. It's accompanied by another heavy sigh.

"It'll be all right," Ben whispers softly and tightens the hold of his hand on Joe's shoulder.

He feels his friend nod minutely, Joe's hair a ticklish touch against the skin of his throat and, unexpectedly, it sends a shiver through Ben's body. It's not something one is supposed to feel while trying to console a friend, an emotion closer to excitement rather than to sympathy, and it frightens Ben. Yet at the same time, it feels perfectly right and definitely not all that unexpected, and the darkness and the close claustrophobic space inside the car only intensify this sensation. It's like it's been coming to this all this time, to them finally being drawn together, so Ben allows himself something he wouldn't dare do in the light of day – he pulls Joe closer still, enclosing him into a proper, two-arm, embrace, and nuzzles his face against the top of his friend's head.

There are those sunglasses in the way, so Ben allows his hand to leave Joe's shoulder for long enough to pull them off and then returns it back to its initial place. Joe's hair is now a ticklish touch against his cheek and chin and lips and the sheer, utterly unanticipated, normality of it overwhelms Ben. It shouldn't be, his inner voice cries, it shouldn't come to this, it shouldn't feel this good, he shouldn't want it so much, this physical proximity, but Ben makes a determined effort to shut it off completely. Right here and now, it's like they're encapsulated into an utterly different small universe of their own, and it doesn't matter in the slightest what his inner voice tries to convey. What does is the warmth of Joe's body and his regular breathing landing somewhere in the region of Ben's collar bone.

With a sigh that is more of satisfaction rather than anything else, Ben settles a bit more comfortably in his seat and looks out through the windshield at the red tail lights of the cars in front of theirs. The only thing he wishes was different right now is that he would gladly have Joe's arms wrapped around him, too. It's a strange desire to have, but Ben absolutely forbids himself to ponder on it because it would be a road into nowhere. At the same time, this thought brings about another memory, one from their filming of _I Want to Break Free_  scene, when Joe's arms _were_ around him, holding him securely in place while he was slapping his bum zealously. 

The recollection is so vivid – not in terms of the clarity of the mental image he has but of the strength of the emotions provoked by it – that Ben has to stifle a soft groan. That bloody episode, that's when it happened, that's when it all began, all the confusion, and the strange desires, and the constant longing for Joe's company. Ben didn't want to acknowledge it then, and he certainly doesn't want to do it now but it seems there's no running from it anymore. He liked the entire thing and not because it was fun. It was hilarious, of course, and they had a good laugh, but what was particularly special about it is that feeling of intimacy he and Joe shared back there on that sofa, the sensation of Joe's hands on him, the feeling of Joe twisting and turning him in his arms the way he pleased, and Ben can run from it as much as he pleases but he knows that at the end of the day the only thing he will run to is having to acknowledge that it had its sexual appeal.

Ben sighs quietly and decides to let that slip, too. He's not prepared to think about that, either, not right here and now. The present atmosphere might not be the most suitable one for thinking clearly. It's too dark and too cosy, Joe is too close and too warm and real beside him, his own arms wrapped around Joe's shoulders feel too comfortable where they are, with his hand stoking Joe's upper arm up and down in minute, soothing motions. It is, however, a perfectly suitable place for enjoying it all, so Ben decides to shut off his mind and do just that, enjoy what he's doing, enjoy Joe's presence and closeness.

The rest of the journey is spent like this, with Joe dozing on Ben's shoulder, if his even breathing and limp body could be any indication. Gwil doesn't disturb them at all – which comes as a small surprise because normally he'd be trolling them, joking about jealousy and matches made in heaven and stupid love triangles. The only thing he does is occasionally throw a brief glance in the rear-view mirror, which Ben catches on himself but doesn't respond to. On one single occasion Gwil raises an eyebrow quizzically, darting a brief glance at Joe, a perfect wordless _'Is he okay?',_ to which Ben shrugs lightly – _'I don't know but hope so.'_

He'd probably drift off to sleep, too – long car journeys, especially at night, are always a good time for a nap – but he makes a determined effort to stay awake, and the sole reason behind it is that sleeping would mean slipping into unconsciousness while still having Joe nestled beside him like this, and Ben doesn't want to miss a single second of it. He'll keep on pretending it's just a friendly thing after their trip is over, but for the time being he knows it isn't even if his rational mind refuses to acknowledge it.

Never mind the bloody rational mind for now.

Weirdly enough, there is little traffic on their entering London, which is a surprise and which, for once in a lifetime, Ben wouldn't mind to get stuck in. He doesn't quite want this journey to end even though he's tired from their road trip. He's also stiff from sitting in the same position for the past couple of hours or so and his arm is on the verge of going to sleep so he has to flex his hand now and again, carefully so that he wouldn't wake Joe up, but it's the most comfortable place he's been at over the past several months. It's even more than that, it's the most intimate moment he's shared with anyone over god knows how long. Perhaps it's just ordinary human closeness deprivation, the lack of hormones which are produced while hugging another person and being hugged by them in return, Ben tells himself, knowing perfectly well that it's a lie. It's all because if Joe, only him, and he simply doesn't want to let him out of his embrace just yet.

Still, no matter how much Ben wants this journey to last, the time and space are relentlessly bringing them back to London, and when they are about five minutes away from the hotel Joe is staying at, Ben has to wake him up. Before he does it, though, he turns his head just a little and once again buries his nose into Joe's hair. It smells faintly of his own shampoo, which he lent Joe yesterday, but at the same time it has a subtly different quality on Joe.

And it moves something in Ben, both on the innermost emotional level and on the purely trivial physical one. Impulsively, he pulls in another lungful of that scent and screws his eyes, his hand tightening on Joe's upper arm by its own accord. Joe twitches barely noticeably but doesn't seem to wake up, and at the very back of his mind Ben cherishes an absolutely irrational hope that Joe doesn't want this to end just as much.

"Joe?" he murmurs and scratches his friend's shoulder gently. "We're almost there."

"Mmhm," Joe hums in response, sounding more asleep than awake, but he shifts against Ben all the same, moving away with half a sigh, half a yawn. 

Before he does it, though, his hand lands on Ben's thigh, seemingly by accident, making the latter want to give a start from the unexpectedness of it, but he manages to suppress it. The said hand tightens its hold, lingering longer than strictly necessary, or so it seems to Ben, and then Joe lets go, moving away to the other side of the passenger's seat and leaving Ben alone, suddenly breathless. He looks after Joe, at Joe, he cannot help it for the life of him because he wants him back, right where he was, and Joe's hand on himself, and Joe's warmth and that inexplicable sense of intimacy that just was there a few moments ago and the remnants of which are still lingering between them like some gossamer threads.

Joe doesn't look at him, he seems barely awake at all, rubbing at his eyes with the air of a person who doesn't quite understand what exactly is going on and where he is, and for some reason it hurts Ben somewhere deep inside. He's too emotionally unravelled right now to understand what it is, but later, alone by himself, he will be able to analyse it and define it for what it was – a desperate longing for Joe's attention, that plain old sign of plain old lovesickness. For the time being, however, all he can do is try to catch his breath and savour the remains of Joe's closeness.

What brings him back to reality is Gwil's voice

"N'aaaw," he drawls from the driver's seat. "Just look at you two cuties. Hope you slept well, eh? I nearly did, too, since no one was talking to me for the past few hours."

"Ah, Gwil, jealousy is a sin," Ben says with a light-hearted smile and throws another glance at Joe who, for a change, doesn't say anything at all and just smirks mildly, eyes down, and once again Ben wonders if he's really all right.

"Next time I'm hiring a chauffeur and joining your cuddles in the back, you bastards," Gwil mutters and this finally makes Joe laugh.

He sounds more or less like himself, which is a relief, which Ben would be able to appreciate more weren't he so suddenly so utterly perturbed. It feels as if, moving away from him, Joe also took some part of Ben with him, something which Ben desperately wants back. Deep inside, though, he has a suspicion that the only way for him to feel complete again would be to have Joe back in his arms. Stunned by this realisation to his very core, Ben stares at Joe, helplessly, biting his lip.

When they finally arrive at the hotel, both Gwil and Ben get out of the car to say goodbye. The big guy gathers Joe in his bear hug, apparently so tight that Joe lets out a joking suffocating gasp of protest, but he smiles and hugs Gwil back, thanking him for this little amazing trip. When it's Ben's turn to say goodbye, he also hugs Joe, but he's doing it much more apprehensively than Gwil. He wishes he could do the same thing, pull Joe into his arms and give him a proper, slightly rough, guy hug, but he cannot. What he desires to do is pull Joe into his arms, yes, and hold him there, close, so that he could feel every single inch of his body with his own. He doesn't do it, if course, he's somewhat terrified of this desire, but he can hardly help the longing itself. Joe hugs him back, just as carefully, nothing like that manhandling he gave Ben during the filming of _I Want To Break Free_ , memories of which seem to haunt Ben today, but then there is Joe's hand sliding down along Ben's spine, slowly, and all of a sudden, Ben experiences another moment of this strange asphyxia that ends up with the familiar fluttering in the pit of his stomach and the complementary fuzzy feeling in his chest. Joe's hand stops at the small of his back, lingers there and then relocates to his side as Joe himself moves away, slowly but not slowly enough.

"Thank you," Joe murmurs against Ben's neck, and the hand momentarily tightens on his side.

Then he moves away completely, leaving Ben feeling utterly undone, grabs his rucksack, waves at them both and, with a cheerful enough _'See you!'_ , enters the hotel.

All that Ben does afterwards, from getting back into the car with Gwil, their commute through London, their chat on the way, happens purely on autopilot. His confusion is not caused by anything which took place before, but rather by what emotions it evoked in him. By old habit, Ben wants to simply turn a blind eye to them, run away and ignore all of it as he's been doing for almost a whole year now, justifying everything he and Joe do by chemistry and labelling it as 'fooling around', but this time he doesn't quite seem to be able to.

Somehow, that last _'thank you'_ , complemented by Joe's hand on his thigh and then on his side, staying there for longer than would have been necessary, give Ben an impression that now there's a secret only the two of them share. It's not about their little band of friends, or their chemistry, and Gwil and Rami and Allen have absolutely nothing to do with it; it's only about the two of them, and it seems – only seems, and what wouldn't Ben give away to know for sure – that they both are aware of it, of the presence of this very warm, fuzzy and rather unambiguous feeling.

At the end of the day, Ben ends up jerking himself off before he falls asleep, alone in his bed and in his flat, refusing to think about Joe as he does so, refusing to think about Joe's breath on his neck and Joe's hand on his thigh, forbidding himself to do so, telling himself he's not attracted to Joe in that sense, no, not like that, he is a ladies' man, has always been, but his subconsciousness and his imagination ignore him much more successfully than he ignores them, and, yes, Joe is what is on his mind when he comes all over himself, not quite able to stifle a moan. It seems terrifying even to produce sounds like this while thinking about his friend – about his _male_ friend – as if someone could hear him and...

 _And do what?_  the rational part of Ben's mind asks, curiously.

"I don't fucking know," Ben replies to it softly, "I've never wanted a man before."

And just like that, it all becomes way less confusing in a matter of the few seconds it takes him to utter those words. Saying it out loud gives what he feels – has been feeling for quite a long time – a definite name. It doesn't make it less terrifying, and a part of Ben wishes dearly that it remained a bloody mystery to him, wishes he hadn't had this moment if epiphany, but on the whole there's an odd sort of consolation in understanding what exactly he wants from Joe.

He suspects there's more to it than just longing, that there are feelings involved, too, and that he has a very thorough contemplation to do and lots of personal confessions to make, but he's not prepared to engage in any of that right now.

What Ben does instead is turn onto his side, hug the pillow close to himself, bury his face into it and try to fall asleep. He has sort of reconciled with the fact that Joe isn't going to vacate his head anytime soon, so he lets him stay there for as long as he wishes, and it's Joe's name on his lips he falls asleep with, uttered ever so softly, a mere breath rather than a word, just like it's always been done by generations upon generations of lovers before him.

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is related to that infamous spanking scene (because it kept haunting me); the second is just something induced by *'You take my breath away' by Queen and has a vague relation to the trip to Scotland the guys apparently took sometime in June 2018.
> 
> Both chapters stand well on their own, I suppose, but it happens prior to the events described in the Winter Rhapsody series.


End file.
